Back in January at the StartUp Health Festival in San Francisco, former Vice President Joe Biden, who has a personal interest in innovation in oncology, lamented a lack of data fluidity.
“I’d like to say that there are widely distributed applied techniques and mechanisms to share data among researchers, clinicians, and patients, but I can’t,” he told the audience.
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The National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which provides evidence-based guidelines for treatment, is taking a stab at the first part of Biden’s assessment —data sharing among researchers. The Fort Washington, Pennsylvania nonprofit alliance of 27 top cancer centers in the nation announced Tuesday the availability of a free cancer research database that would encourage collaboration across the board.
This would broaden the use of the Shared Resource Database to all cancer centers in the U.S. whereas for the past two years it was used only by the 27 cancers part of NCCN.
“When we work together, we can discover better methods for treating and preventing cancer much more efficiently,” said Dr. Robert W. Carlson, chief executive officer, NCCN in a news release. “NCCN recognizes the importance of access to shared resources in order to advance scientific progress. By making this resource database available to investigators across the country free of charge, we improve our collective ability to conduct crucial cancer research.”
The Shared Resource Database is a repository of more than 240 resources, including complex technologies, instrumentation facilities, human tissue specimens, animal models, specialized databases, as well as other specialty research items. Researchers would be able to use it by registering on the NCCN website
One cancer center that will now be able to use the NCCN database and add its own resources to it is the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, which is a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.
“The NCCN database is an ideal platform for cancer centers to share resources with the greater research community,” said Luis Montaner, D.V.M., D.Phil., Wistar Vice President for Scientific Operations,Herbert Kean, M.D., Family Endowed Chair Professor, in an email forwarded by a representative. “Investigators anywhere in the country who are in need of specialized technology and expertise to enhance their research program will know exactly where to find it.”
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